Pie Maths Galaxy ...

I came across "Galaxy of Mathematicians", Volume-1, published by the Pie Mathematics Association, Chennai. The book gives the brief life histories of Euclid, Archimedes, Pythagoras, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Fermat, Gauss, Euler and Erdos along some of their important works. The life of Leibniz speaks of the 'Calculus Wars', his study of binary numbers, arrays/matrices leading to 'stepped reckoner (calculator)',and why he deserves the title, "Father of Applied Sciences". This is a good introduction to the original works of the authors mentioned.

The back cover text on the book says the publisher association is for removing mathphobia. Surely we need more such groups to grow and nurture mathematics!

Richard M Stallman: Code Guru Mahatma

The Mahatma was always part of life and the CD below, produced by Dr. Natesan of Krea was of great interest when it was released in the 1990s:

Walnut Creek CDROM published it. I first came to know of 'Linux' from the title card of this CD:

The CD on the Mahatma provided the first step in connecting to another rare modern Mahatma, Richard M Stallman, better known as 'RMS'. I would know about RMS and his work much later, but this was the start. The 'Gandhi' CDROM title card advertised 'Linux Slackware 96' as "Internet's favourite. Full PC UNIX", that left me curious about this UNIX for the PC.

The Internet was not ubiquitous a decade ago and CDROM was the main source for obtaining software. The first book I could lay my hands on the subject was Sam's "Learn Linux in 24 Hours". A free CD came with it:

The CD simply did not work. The book was interesting though. I very much wanted to see what the running 'Linux' OS screen looked like. The first opportunity to do that came at the Bangalore IT.COM fair, in 2000:

There was this large pavilion full of software systems, people, distros, shops and events - all busy at the same time. There was even a cluster running at a corner from a dozen mini-frames. Some stressed they were free and open. At the GT enterprises stall I got myself a couple of distros to try at home:

The pavilion filled my hands with pamphlets like this:

I tried installing Mandrake Linux and the screen came alive with the installation instructions. I never quite finished installing as there was some problem at the final step - I think I did not have a supported graphics card. I decided to shop for more distros, until I had a working system. After some time I visited Bangalore again, and had these options:

I decided I would give the SuSE 7.0 Professional edition a try. I carefully got a graphics card that was supported this time. YaST did a fine job installing the operating system, x server, applications and all - in about three hours time! I finally had a free operating system!

With free software, so many options and tools were available, and I spent most of my free time trying them out. Finally, after a month or so, I settled for the Apache Web Server with PHP for web scripting and PostgreSQL for data storage. The StarOffice package fulfilled all my word processing needs. There was a lot of excitement with graphics tools like GIMP and the load of games that came. It was initially tedious to work on the console most of the time but after getting a hang of it, it was clearly the way to do things. Man[ual] pages of many commands declared:

This is free software: you are free  to  change  and  redistribute  it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Author names like Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Richard Stallman, and Jim Meyaering came up on the console window. The SuSE 7.0 Handbook included a copy of the GNU General Public License in Appendix F:

The SuSE 7.0 box included this Oracle phamplet:

Oracle has done a lot for the free software movement in the past decade showing deep interest in Java, MySQL, OpenOffice etc. I also tried other distros that came my way. Charles Fisher wrote "Red Hat Linux 6.0 Administration Tools" and the book came with 2 CDs:

The book taught many installation procedures in a straight forward way.
Meanwhile, I had registered the 'Gandhi' CD with Walnut Creek CDROM, and they sent me their catalog:

I tried FreeBSD too, but the availability of applications on BSD was restricted by your ability to install and configure it correctly. I gave up even trying it after a while.

The Linux For You magazine was launched sometime in 2002 or so, and I came to know of ilugc from its lug listing and subscribed to the ilugc mailing list. I mostly lurked there, and sometime asked questions - and often got responses that helped a lot. I came to know of the fsf-friends mailing list through ilugc and joined there. RMS used to post occasionally to the fsf-friends mailing list, and soon I got involved in fsf-india activities. There was always one freedom issue or the other that was interesting. Communicating with RMS over email is one of the intellectual pleasures life had to offer, and to say the least, it was very useful and productive. I wrote to him about a JavaScript code I wrote, to calculate fair rent in accordance with the local rules here, as an example of the kind of coding I was doing to port law to computers. He was kind in replying as follows:

If this includes implementation of human-style common-sense
reasoning, you may have tackled a problem that the Artificial
Intelligence field has been struggling with for 35 years.

AI was the last on my mind then and it encouraged me to study about the struggle there. Soon, it took me to Lisp, AI by Winston, and the problem remained on my back-burner. The greatest advantage I derived from communicating with RMS was this innocuous line on AI that got me hooked to programming like never before. Incidentally, ancient Indian philosophical works started to appear very modern and relevant from the AI angle.

RMS had planned to come down to Chennai in Feb, 2005. It was my pleasure to plan some of the events for him here - mainly, the talk on 'Software Patents' here in Chennai. Bharati, AB, myself and other friends received RMS at the Chennai Airport. The flight was delayed by half an hour, and that gave Bharati and myself, time to go up to Pammal to get a couple of garlands for the code guru. We were delighted to meet him in person - he enjoyed the fragrance of the champangi garland! After the perfunctory introductions, RMS quickly got to opening his laptop and started working.

The first thing I noticed was his mastery over the keyboard. His hands just played over the laptop - I have never seen anyone else so proficient on the keyboard. The control, alt, function and every single key is naturally used so well in emacs. No time is wasted while coding. RMS is known for being the original author of the great 2Gs in the software spectrum: GCC and GPL. The road from Chennai to Vellore was under construction, and the journey was naturally tedious. It was not easy to stop by the road side for a tea break. RMS took all these little discomforts in his stride and stayed focused on work at hand punctuated by mail transfers. He spoke on software freedom at VIT and did his 'St. Ignucious-I bless your computer, my child' bit at the end of the the speech. He also played his recorder (pocket sized flute like pipe) both at VIT during dinner and at MIT after his short talk. RMS spoke on the dangers of 'Software Patents' at the IIT-M. The auditoriums were packed with students everywhere he went! A few pics from the events at VIT, IIT and MIT:

At the OLT, IIT-M:

At MIT, Chrompet:

He would have liked to listen to a carnatic recital that Chennai is so famous for - I hope that is part of the program the next time he visits Chennai. As he left, he gave me a firm hand shake and wished "Happy hacking".

In the Indian context, it is useful to distinguish between free and non-free systems:

Non-free Software Adharma:
● Non-free software system is
– unethical
– anti-social
– simply wrong
● Works by keeping users divided
● A co-operating community is forbidden
● Users are not allowed to change or share the software they use

Free Software Dharma
● Freedom to use the program for any purpose
● Freedom to study and modify its source code
● Freedom to redistribute copies to others
● Freedom to distribute modified versions to others

"Dharma" has no exact equivalent word in English (say, "Aram" அறம் in Tamil). It encompasses virtue , morality, good works according to right or rule, rightly, justly, according to the nature of anything. Adharma is unrighteousness, injustice, wickedness. Mahatma Gandhi said, "When adharma spreads, some men undertake tapascharya (penance) and through their tapascharya, generate dharma in the world". Free Software is a response to the non-free software adharma, and it very naturally explains work of the free software community to others. The free software movement has been led by the code guru very successfully and the burning desire for freedom inheres code development.

Over the past decade, free software systems have grown phenomenally from strength to strength. After the new version of the GPL came in 2007, I lost interest in fsf activities. The future programs are more likely to lie centered around stack based ones like forth in the public domain. Postscript and its derivatives like PDF are living proof for that. Given the massive parallel GPUs and CPUs rapidly moving towards exascale machines capable of 10¹⁸ calculations per second, it is very likely that simple stack based applications get priority because they are small, fast, secure, open and free. Maybe they would be hard too but other programs and tools should make the task of maintaining them easy.

The road to freedom is a hard one. I had the opportunity to travel along with RMS - the code guru mahatma - on the road to freedom for a short while, and I hope it would lead to solving the AI problem and end the long struggle.

Research papers of Dr. G.N. Ramachandran

The University of Madras [UoM] has contributed two Nobel laureates to the world: Dr. Sir C.V. Raman and Dr Subramaniam Chandrasekar. Raman's disciple Dr. G.N. Ramachandran, was invited to establish the Department of Physics at the UoM in 1950. The research work by Dr. GNR, as he was called, is most remarkable. He proposed the triple helix structure of collagen, the 'ramachandran plot' to *validate* protein structures, 3D tomography using convolution method - the basic algorithm that made CT-Scans possible, by 1970s. Thereafter, he wrote a number of papers on Syad Nyaya - may be theory - that now passes as "fuzzy logic". He died in 2001, and most obituaries lamented that the Nobel missed this master.

His most outstanding research paper would be on "Three-dimensional Reconstruction from Radiographs and Electron Micrographs: Application of Convolutions instead of Fourier Transforms" now also available at http://www.pnas.org/content/68/9/2236.full.pdf This work with A.V. Lakshminarayanan was the starting point for the development of CAT scan technique in radiography and later, magnetic resonance imaging.

He helped to lay foundations for bio-physics, and this branch of science has grown leaps and bounds ever since, in the recent decades.

The last leg of his career was devoted to writing the papers on what passes as fuzzy logic today. The links to the GNR paper on BA-2 are from http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/currsci/51/00000685.pdf to *693.pdf He profoundly realised the role of computing in science, and he is the greatest computer scientist India has given to the world, in recent times.

We have not made optimum use of the research by this great scientist. As a first step, all the research papers published by him need to be collated and published online.

References:

[1] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/Gnrmain.htm
[2] http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/gnramachandran%20.htm
[3] http://www.ias.ac.in/j_archive/currsci/52/7/292-302/viewpage.html
[4] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/mat.html
[5] http://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/auth.php?authid=11647&author=Ramachandran,%20G.%20N.

An analysis of 5000 PDF files

To be exact, 4949 PDF files were used for the analysis.

Methodology:
To collect information about the PDF/pdf files available on my system, the following command was run:

# find / -name "*.[pP][dD][fF]" -type f -exec ./test.sh {} \;

test.sh script:

echo " " >> index.dat
echo $1 >> index.dat
pdfinfo $1 >> index.dat

index.dat so generated was parsed into a postgresql database table with columns for title, author, creator, producer, keywords, subject, bytes, pages, creation_date, mod_date, page_size, pdf_version, encrypted, optimized and tagged field values returned by pdfinfo program for each PDF file.

PDF Version:
More than 3500 files were using version 1.3 or 1.4, introduced a decade ago. The file counts for all major versions were as follows:

PDF Version (with year   File 
of its introduction):    count:
    1.0 (1993)              3
    1.1 (1994)            196
    1.2 (1996)            720
    1.3 (1999)           1622
    1.4 (2001)           1912
    1.5 (2003)            260
    1.6 (2005)            187
    1.7 (2006)             49

The PDF file format has now been published as an open standard in 2008, and Version 2.0 is in the offing. It may safely be predicted that Version 2.0, or one of the subsequent 2.* stable releases, would stabilize by 2020.
For those wondering about the three files old files on my system using version 1.0, one of them is a copy of the "Hacker's Diet", by John Walker, that can still be downloaded from: http://fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/hdpdf.zip The pdfinfo for this file is as follows:

Author:         John Walker
Creator:        LaTeX
CreationDate:   Monday, December 20, 1993 at 22:57
Tagged:         no
Pages:          338
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      342 x 476 pts
File size:      2007166 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.0

Pages:
The 4949 PDF files have a total page count of 2,80,777. More than half of the PDF files have just a couple of pages. File counts for those with less than 10 pages:

Number of    File
pages:       count:
        1    893
        2    473
        3    332
        4    227
        5    192
        6    167
        7    146
        8    130
        9     78

About 1/3rd of the total have less than 101 pages. The average page count was 33 for files with page count between and 10 and 100. The page range statistics:

Number of         File 
pages between:    count: 
  1-10            2722
  10-100          1579
  100-1000         632
  1000+             16

Page size:
A4 is the standard, followed by letter size. Due to the minor difference in the points scale used, no summary is given here.

 
Page size:                File 
                          count:
595 x 842 pts (A4)        1348
612 x 792 pts (letter)    1315
595.276 x 841.89 pts (A4)  510
468 x 648 pts               92
595.28 x 841.89 pts (A4)    89
595.22 x 842 pts (A4)       44
612 x 1008 pts              31
595 x 964 pts               30

Author:
The Author field was blank in half of the PDF files. The good news is that the Author names are given even consistently across the files in the remaining half. A few example names found:

Author (File count):
Benjamin Franklin (2)
D.S.KOTHARI (1)
David Carlisle, carlisle@cs.man.ac.uk (5)
Doyle, Arthur Conan (2)
Intel Corporation (2)
Lawrence Lessig (1)
The Unicode Consortium (5)

Title:
Some good title descriptions found:

Title (File count):
ACHARYA JAGADIS CHUNDER BOSE - HIS LIFE AND WORK (1858-1937) (1)
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1)
APOLLO 8 MISSION REPORT FEB 1969 (1)
ARBITRATION LAW IN INDIA (1)
Free Culture (1)
Intel® Desktop Board D945GCLF Product Guide (1)
The Articles of Confederation (1)

Many files had numbers with "Chapter", "Form", "Annexure", "Volume" or other prefixes that do not help to identify the file. A title like "Animal Farm by George Orwell" duplicates the Author field. As an example of good style, I could cite the five PDF books authored by David Carlisle, carlisle@cs.man.ac.uk available on the system. The Author name is written consistently across the PDF files, and the titles accurately describe the content:

The afterpage package
The delarray package
The hhline package
The indentfirst package
The xr package

Subject:
In most files (4564 to be precise), this field was left blank. PDF files from http://www.feedbooks.com/ give the subject, making it easy to index thus:

 Subject (File count):
 Non-Fiction (2)
 Non-Fiction, Essay (1)
 Non-Fiction, Essay, Collections (2)
 Non-Fiction, Essay, Politics (2)
 Non-Fiction, History, Essay, Politics (1)
 Non-Fiction, Philosophy (4)
 Novels, Adventure (6)
 Novels, History, Biography (1)
 Novels, History, Romance, Adventure (1)
 Novels, History, War (1)
 Novels, Horror, Fantasy (1)
 Novels, Philosophy, Science Fiction, Politics (1)
 Short Fiction (1)
 Short Fiction, Crime/Mystery, Collections (1)
 Short Fiction, Horror (1)
 Short Fiction, Science Fiction (8)
 Short Fiction, Science Fiction, Collections (1)
 Short Fiction, Young Readers, Fantasy, Collections (3)

Keywords:
4850 files did not give any keywords. The few that give, help a lot in classifying the files. Some example keywords found listed:

[Org   ] Keywords (File count):
[nVIDIA] GeForce 6, Video Processing Technology (1)
[ilugc ] FOSS, Free, Open, BSD, Linux, Software (1)
[pakin ] attachments; annotations; PDF; LaTeX; package; automatic; files (1)
[us-con] constitution independence hall philadelphia (1)
[bnhs  ] wader, india, point calimere, india, bird, waterfowl, russia, monitoring, wetlands, india, cranes, important areas, waterbirds around the world (1)

Document Restrictions:
The vast majority of PDF files imposed no restrictions. The details:

Document restriction parameters:                File
                                                count:
no                                              4292 
yes (print:no copy:no change:no addNotes:no)     570
yes (print:yes copy:no change:no addNotes:no)     53
yes (print:yes copy:no change:no addNotes:yes)     4
yes (print:yes copy:yes change:no addNotes:no)    20
yes (print:yes copy:yes change:no addNotes:yes)    2
yes (print:yes copy:yes change:yes addNotes:yes)   8

Information relating to copyright is mostly part of the content - it should ideally form part of the file metadata too. Many of the document restrictions cease to apply after lapse of statutory period of copyright, and it would help to have particulars about the owner of the copyright, licensing terms and conditions, along with full details about the source of publication.

Optimization:
PDF files are either linear (optimized) or non-linear (not optimized). Linear files are basically optimized for the web, so that the pages can be viewed without waiting for the whole file to download as is the case with non-linear files. The statistics for optimization were:

Optimization (File count):
false (2934)
true  (2015)

Content:
Of course, pdfinfo doesn't help here - one has to read the file to judge content. 500+ files were from www.arvindguptatoys.com and 100+ were from www.gandhiserve.org - I recommend both sites for useful reading :)

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
http://www.adobe.com

CSX v. SEBI

Universal Law Publishing Co has published the Third Edition of M.V. Pylee's "Constitutional Amendments in India", in 2010, with full text of all Acts, Statement of Objects and Reasons and legislative history. The Constitution of India has so far witnessed Ninety-Four Amendments in its 60 years of operation.

Worldwide, the most significant constitutional reform we hear about is about having more open societies, where the citizens actively participate in governance. George Soros spoke elaborately about the need for open societies, and a transcript of his lecture is at http://www.soros.org/resources/multimedia/sorosceu_20091112/capitalism_transcript The core problem is summarised by Soros in these words:

According to the modern concept of sovereignty, the natural resources of a country belong to the people of that country, but governments, which are supposed to be agents of the people, put their own interests ahead of the interests of the people whom they are supposed to represent and engage in all sorts of corrupt practices. On the opposite side, the managements of the international oil and mining companies represent the interests of the companies all too well. They used to go so far as to bribe governments in order to obtain concessions. Willing takers and givers of bribes are the root cause of the resource curse.

Once I became aware of the agency problem, I discovered it everywhere.

Communism failed because of the agency problem. Karl Marx's proposition-from everybody according to their ability and to everybody according to their needs-was a very attractive idea, but the communist rulers put their own interests ahead of the interests of the people.

The agency problem is also the bane of representative democracy: the elected representatives use their powers for their own interests to the detriment of the common interest.

The Internet, mobile phones and other electronic networks widely available today could make direct democracy possible. However, direct participation in policy and law making sans inter meddlers and representatives needs to be tried and tested, before it could be realised through constitutional changes.

The most veritable testing grounds for direct participation of people is readily available at most stock exchanges. It is no accident that the stock markets and legislative assemblies have advanced forward in parallel replacing older forms of trade and governance.

The Bombay Stock Exchange originated as "The Native Share & Stock Brokers' Association" in 1875, making it the oldest stock exchange in Asia, continuously existing for more than 135 years. It was established soon after the East India Company, was dissolved and liquidated in 1874 by passing of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act, after the Government of India Act, 1858 closed the company rule.

The Coimbatore Stock Exchange came up very recently. CSX developed in the light of floor based trading but after electronic terminals became common place after 2000, the floors collapsed. Terminal based trading changed the future for CSX. [Ref: http://www.sebi.gov.in/courtorders/madras.html etc.] The next big development in terminal based trading might be when the brokers feel the heat and terminate.

The future of grass root democracy is nascent in the air. The success of terminal based trading should encourage terminal based voting and law making. Constitutional history could be in the making again.

Bretts Road, Salem

Philip Mason finished his book, "The Men Who Ruled India", with these words:

"When all has been said, one simple point remains. It was put clearly by Lord Wavell in an informal speech made after he left India. The English would be remembered, he believed, not by this institution or that, but by the ideal they left behind of what a district officer should be. At the other end of the long line, Warren Hastings had expressed a similar thought. 'It is on the virtue,' he had said, 'not the ability, of their servants that the Company must rely.' And if today the Indian peasant looks to the new district officer of his own race with expectation of receiving justice and sympathy, that is the memorial of the English."¹

"Bretts Road, Salem" is one such memorial. Harry Augustus Bretts, was the collector of Salem district, between 1853 and 1862 (called Baramahal then). His achievements:

He was a great administrator who brought in sweeping reforms in land taxes.
He levied less tax for poor yielding lands under ‘Less Fertile’ classification.
It was he who abolished the sukavasi inam (free lands for living), a free distribution of lands to Brahmins and Muslims in the district and instead introduced samathuvapuram concept by making all people live in all places amicably.
Bretts was also responsible for bringing out the first government gazette.
He brought out The Salem Gazette in 1859. Historian Le Fanu called Bretts a man of impeccable character and straight forward in administration and deliverance of justice and architect of many people welfare schemes.²

The Government of Tamil Nadu would like to rename "Bretts Road" as "Central Library Road". The proposal serves no useful purpose other than erasing the memorial to Harry Augustus Bretts, who ably served Salem as its Collector. Philip Mason did not live to hear of this tragic move.³ However, the Indian Civil Service has undergone radical changes after the British left India, and the move to rename is perhaps only the last nail on the notion of virtuous service.

Baramahal then included Salem, Dharmapuri and Namakkal, and was one of the earliest districts to come under British rule in India:⁴

Alexander Read, was appointed by Lord Cornwallis, as the first head of the district in 1791. Thomas Munro was appointed one of his assistants. Salem was completely surveyed in seven years time. Munro never forgot Salem and remembered it as a model unit of administration. Bretts served decades later, building on the foundation laid by Read and Munro.

Mason's book is replete with anecdotes on administration of revenue, justice, building roads, canals, bridges, railroads and nurturing institutions.
The rule of "Audi alterem partem" was taught this way:

To a Bhil tribesman who, after a long tale of woe, begged him for justice at once, here and now, on an oppressor who had not been heard in answer, Malcom asked:
'Why do you suppose God gave me two ears?'
That would be enough; it would carry instant conviction where half an hour's explanation would have produced only a sullen bewilderment. It was an answer which ought to have been taught to every young man entering the Company's service.⁵

Even today, the role of the Collector remains much the same. He takes charge of the district. He is duty bound to remove public nuisances and maintain public order.⁶ During the British rule, more than 3000 thugs were convicted between 1831 and 1837, after Lord William Bentinck appointed Sleeman to capture and bring the thugs to justice. Thugs those days killed for gain, and it was not unusual for them to have targets of killing one thousand pilgrims and travelers. Clearing India of thugs was no easy task but the evil was tamed.⁷

"Bretts Road" stands in glorious remembrance of the difficult services of not only Henry Augusts Bretts, but scores of others like him who diligently served India. The greatest criticism against the civil service of the British era was that they were not accountable to the people. Mahatma Gandhi started the non-cooperation movement in 1919, when Indians were cooperating with the administration in every way. After Independence, the anomaly stands corrected and the rulers are held accountable to the people through elected representatives. The Collector is a pillar of strength in our democratic set up. As a native of Salem, a wish: The road to virtuous service is a hard one and "Bretts Road" ought to remain on the map of India, as a guide to every sincere traveler.

---

¹ Philip Mason, The Men Who Ruled India, Rupa & Co, 1985, p. 346
² R. Ilangovan, We want Bretts Road, The Hindu, 28th November, 2009, http://www.hindu.com/2009/11/28/stories/2009112852490300.htm accessed on 29th November, 2009.
³ Philip Mason passed away in 1999. A clip from the "Daily Telegraph (London), Obituaries, Friday, January 29, 1999" is available at
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/INDIA/1999-01/0917632468, accessed on 29th November, 2009.
⁴ Mason, op. cit., p. 86
⁵ Ibid., p. 88
⁶ AIR 2009 SC 1868, Suhelkhan Khudyarkhan & another v. Sate of Maharashtra and others also available online at http://www.ebc-india.com/practicallawyer/index2.php?option=com_content&itemid=99999999&do_pdf=1&id=13137
⁷ Mason, op. cit., p. 115

Bentley's Second Phrase

The "Bentley's Code Phrases" [ http://www.archive.org/details/bentleyscomplete00bentuoft ] first published in 1906 continued to be commonly used till the end of 1960's. That and other codes were widely used by commercial establishments - "coding" seems to have been popular then at grass root levels. If the 5 letter codes were well understood, popular and used widely, there are no reasons why the present coding done with computer languages based on 8 bit letters can't be used with the same ease by the general public. Coding languages need to start circulating widely among the public the way Bentley's Code ruled from 1906 to the 1960s.

Weavers

Sarojini Naidu wrote a poem titled "Indian Weavers":

WEAVERS, weaving at break of day,
Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . .
Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,
We weave the robes of a new-born child.

Weavers, weaving at fall of night,
Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . .
Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,
We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.

Weavers, weaving solemn and still,
What do you weave in the moonlight chill? . . .
White as a feather and white as a cloud,
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.

Weaving is an age old tradition in India. Weavers making textiles in their homes and open spaces around them used to be a common sight just decades ago. Hand looms are now falling silent. The lucky few are shifted to living cultural museums. Dakshinachitra on ECR, near Chennai, has on display two hand looms on which weavers make a few sarees every month. A few pictures of the weaving equipment:










It is surprising that some say there is "no proof" for hand loom weaving traditions in India because, while, bits of fabric from ancient Egypt and China have survived, not even a shred has been found from India so far! Want to see some real proof that hand looms have existed for long in India? The weaver's feet have a story to tell:

The feet are used to 'power' the hand loom. The space between the big toe (hallux) and the index toe is large enough to accommodate another toe. The weaver's feet have for too long been operating the foot treadle and the space taken by the rope on the treadle has left a permanent mark on their feet. The "Book of Looms" by Eric Broudy documents other distinguishing features of the weavers: they have hands so sensitive to touch, that they cannot do other hard labour. The human genetic map would have the "weaver's patch" that could distinguish traditional weavers from the rest.

Hand loom equipment were upgraded by Jacquard, a French weaver, in 1801. His loom could be controlled by punch cards. This was a huge step in automating the weaving process. In due course, it inspired Charles Babbage to come up with the Analytical Engine, using punch cards to store programs. There has been no looking back since then.

By 2009, the fully automatic looms have almost totally replaced hand looms in India. The weavers in Tamil Nadu have been forced to find other jobs not their vocation - ending up mostly as construction workers. The shrouds for them would be woven by power looms now.

Mahatma Gandhi used weaving for political freedom. Thiruvalluvar, a law giver of the ancient Tamils, is believed to have been a weaver. Hailing from the weaving community, Sir P.T. Thiagaraya Chettiar created political currents in Tamil Nadu. The innovation by Jaquard led to automation of the loom, and the hardware of Babbage have now matured. Will the electronic networks that weave connections between all men mean the end of representatives and pave way for direct democracy? Time will tell - keep reading :)

References:
[1] http://www.poetry-archive.com/n/indian_weavers.html
[2] http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/jacquard.htm
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanga
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom
[5] "The Book of Looms", Eric Broudy, http://books.google.co.in/books?id=shN5_-W1RzcC&printsec=frontcover
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theagaroya_chetty

Manuscripts from Fort St. George, Madras

A Yale Bulletin had this to say:

After 250 years of trade and territorial expansion in South Asia, the East India Company still conjures up images of silks and cottons, tea and spices, rajahs and nabobs -- all emblems of the fabled wealth of India," says the exhibit's curator, Ayesha Ramachandran, a graduate student in Renaissance studies. "But behind that glitter of commodity trading and imperial design lurks a darker, perhaps more haunting, picture of colonial exploitation and racial struggle, economic oppression, political corruption and near bankruptcy.

That made me revisit an old entry made several years ago, that now sounds only like glitter. The darker parts continue to be scripted with lathis, guns and blood. I'll spare the visitor of pain and only share my pleasures here. My older blog entry goes:

The Fort and its Ammunition:

The Fort St. George, all by itself is a museum, worth admiring and
it provides an endless exercise to the mind. Its construction was
started in the 1600’s itself. From humble beginnings as a small
fort to store the goods purchased for exporting to England, it grew to
be the power centre of South India. The Fort is massive in its
construction, with plenty of places to see and enjoy.

The museum preserves the uniforms of the British servants, namely
the chief commander of the Viceroy, the Chief Under Secretary and the
others. The flags of the empire are also in display. There are several
cannons, mortars, muzzle loading guns, pistols, rifles, daggers,
knives, bayonets, spears and ammunition. There is also a petard on
display, which was used to demolish bridges and fort main gates. The
helmets used by the British which are plain steel ones, resembling the
modern helmet, and the Chinese ones made of brass, with special
symbols protruding above the top are queer and quite a sight. The
armours appear to be worn out by use.

The cutlery used by the British, Nabobs of Arcot, and the French
are also on display. The porcelain wares resemble the modern ones in
size and shape. The stained soup bowls and spoons are exquisite, and
all of them bear the royal seal. Even the lids and plates are endorsed
with the royal seal. One peculiar feature was that, a couple of plates
and bowls had some kind of arrangement to keep them warm. The dishes
had a bottom with two openings, probably, to be filled with hot water,
to keep the plate or bowl above it warm.

There are plenty of stamps brought out by the British. The coins
are also in display. The statues of Cornwallis and Monroe are
impressive. The ground floor also has a scaled model of the fort, with
charts describing the progress of the expansion of the fort.

Portraits and other works of art:

The portrait gallery is impressive, with paintings of the British
rulers by Ravi Varma and others. The canvass portrait of King George V
is life like, and you will be stunned by its depth. The King gazes at
us through his hazel blue eyes. His beard and moustache grow out with
life, and it is hard to believe that it is only a portrait. No modern
photograph I have seen reproduce such colour, depth or life. The royal
bearing is brilliantly brought out by the artist, whose name has not
been inscribed. The portraits of other royal ladies are also
impressive. There is a section which displays the Rulers of
Mysore.

There are several etchings too, which portray the life in Madras
between 1600 and 1900. The British appear to have taken very close
looks at our living. The etchings are made by an interesting
process. A well polished copper plate is coated with wax, and the
artist etches out a drawing, cutting the wax and exposing the copper
beneath. The plate is then immersed in dilute nitric acid, and the
exposed copper reacts to form a block. It is then used to print on
paper. Horses, elephants, palanquins, and carts appear to have been
used as the main modes of transport. Several paintings and etchings
show the commercial life of the city. Merchandise being loaded and
unloaded from ships, British women and children arriving at the
harbour adjoining the fort, are all beautiful.

The French Section

The French section displays the things, crockery, clocks, chairs
and furniture used by them in the past. The lanterns and lamp shades
are exquisite and tastefully designed. They look new and usable even
today. The British, appear to have toured Tamil Nadu, even by 1700,
and there are several paintings and etchings, which depict the Tanjore
Pagoda Temple, Rock Fort at Tiruchi, and many other palaces in
Madurai.

The British appear to have evinced keen interest in about
everything in India, and elaborately planned all their actions. I have
merely touched upon a few interesting things at the Fort Museum. The
Fort Museum in Chennai (formerly Madras), India, is a must for all
those who would like to peek into history when Europeans ruled
India.

References:
1. "Exhibit reveals corruption behind the 'glitter' of East India
Company" at http://www.yale.edu/opa/arc-ybc/v35.n23/story12.html
2. Papers of George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney (1737-1806) relating
to his governorship of Fort St. George, Madras (India), 1781-6 at
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/1500-1900/macartney-add/macartney-add.html
3. "Madras Researching Armenian Family History in India 1600 - 1950" at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~chaterfamilytree/madras1.htm
4. "Print, Folklore and Nationalism in Colonial South India‎"
by Stuart Blackburn at http://books.google.co.in/books?id=g3t37gKqUjgC&printsec=frontcover

A hundred years of the Civil Procedure Code

Introduction:

The Code of Civil Procedure [CPC], enacted in 1908, came into force on the first day of January, 1909. The CPC has been used for the past one hundred years by civil suitors to find their rights in India.

Do suitors find speedy justice? Is the code to be blamed for lakhs of cases pending for too long in our courts today? This would be a good time to ponder on these questions.

History of the CPC:

The first attempt to codify civil procedure into a uniform code was in 1859. After a quick succession of amendments, the code of 1908 was enacted. The code has been amended countless times over the past century, but the basic civil procedure has substantially remained the same.

A suit may be filed in a civil court to enforce any right. The scope of the code has considerably narrowed down over the decades by a plethora of leglislation providing for tribunals and other mechanisms to settle civil disputes. The major subjects that have gone out of original jurisdiction of the civil courts include the following:

Rent Control Disputes
Consumer Disputes
Motor Accident Claims
Taxation and disputes relating to government revenue
Family disputes
Administrative matters
Debt recovery involving banks

Even before tribunals, parts of the code or its general principles often come into play. The default method of raising a civil dispute is by filing a suit under the code, and the courts are to try all suits unless barred by law. The code remains central to administration of justice on the civil side.

Scheme of the Code:

The CPC has two parts.

The first part contains 158 sections and creates the jurisdiction of the courts, mechanisms to transfer cases from one court to another, give finality to decisions, and provide for execution of decrees passed. These lay down general principles to be followed while resolving civil disputes.

The second part has 51 orders, which relate to procedure and give the steps to be followed in detail. These rules along with the substantive sections, create the machinery to process civil disputes.

Several generations of suitors have now become well acquainted with the provisions of the code, that the modern trial process is well known to the humblest villager today, and should be ranked as the greatest success of the code.

Bringing efficiency to the Code:

The code could be executed with better efficiency and speed if some thought is given to the following matters followed up with suitable amendments to law:

• The hierarchy of civil courts is far from satisfactory and this reflects on the code. We should do away with innumerable courts at multiple levels and simplify the hierarchy of courts in India. A single District court with unfettered and unlimited jurisdiction should be enough at the district level. Appeals could be preferred to the High Court at the state level. Cases involving questions of law may be taken to the Supreme Court at the national level. A case ought not to be kept pending at any level for more than three months. A division bench should be the norm at every level, and larger benches may be constituted if more wisdom is required to try a case.
  
  
• Court fees should be abolished.
  
  
• Brief pleadings that are short and crisp to the point are highly desirable. The appendices to the first schedule of the code give model forms, and each is no more than three to six paragraphs and would comfortably fit on two sides of a single sheet of paper, complete with cause titles and relief prayed. The Madras High Court museum displays plaints that are decades old, and those hand-written ones are hardly longer than two pages even in complicated suits. Short pleadings would reduce the time taken to prepare, read, try and dispose suits.
  
  
• After service of summons, the case should be taken for hearing on a day to day basis. Dates should be fixed like the way it is done for weddings and trial should proceed as per the plan agreed.
  
  
• Execution of a decree has become one of the most difficult bridges to cross. It should be welcome to modify the code to enforce decrees the way recoveries are made under the recent securitisation law.
  
  
• The code needs to be ported across to computers, so that it could be executed with machine assistance, but this needs a far more serious approach and involvement from the legal fraternity.
  

Future of the Code:

Every trial tests the code and time and again it has passed with brilliance. The code may appear to have many draw backs, but it has become more refined with age. The acid test to judge the code, is a parable from our past:

"ONCE upon a time, when Brahma-datta was reigning in Benares, the future Buddha returned to life as his son and heir. And when the day came for choosing a name, they called him Prince Brahma-datta. He grew up in due course; and when he was sixteen years old, went to Takkasila, and became accomplished in all arts. And after his father died he ascended the throne, and ruled the kingdom with righteousness and equity. He gave judgments without partiality, hatred, ignorance, or fear. Since he thus reigned with justice, with justice also his ministers administered the law. Law-suits being thus decided with justice, there were none who brought false cases. And as these ceased, the noise and tumult of litigation ceased in the king's court. Though the judges sat all day in the court, they had to leave without any one coming for justice. It came to this, that the Hall of Justice would have to be closed!" (source: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/ift/ift18.htm)

The code would certainly achive the fame of Brahma-datta some day in the far future!

Hammurabi's code

The Code of Hammurabi was discovered in 1901 by a French archaeological expedition excavating the great mound known as the acropolis of Susa, in Persia. The black diorite pillar had been inscribed in cuneiform characters a code of law promulgated by Hammurabi. It was eight feet high and two feet in diameter, with forty four columns of inscription.

The code is addressed to suitors who seek justice. The epilogue of his code is as follows:

The oppressed who has a law suit shall come before my image as king of justice. He shall read the writing on my pillar, he shall perceive my precious words. The word of my pillar shall explain to him his cause, and he shall find his right.

The most interesting thing about the code is that the provisions are couched in the form of a series of conditional imperatives introduced by the word 'if'. Examples:

If a man shall steal the minor son of a freeman, he shall be put to death.

If a man find a fugitive slave, male or female, in the open country, and bring the same to the owner, the owner of the slave shall pay that man two shekels of silver.

If a man let his field to another for a fixed rent, and has received the rent for the field, but storms come and destroy the crops, the loss falls upon the renter.

Hammurabi is mostly remembered for his covenant code embodied later in the Bible (Exodus 21:2 to 22:19) too:

life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

The code recognized three classes: patricians, plebeians and slaves. Status depended on birth and slaves were usually foreign prisoners of war. As always, the written words were contemptuously disregarded by the mighty when they could get away with it. However, there is no doubt it regulated daily affairs of the working classes. Code relating to commercial transactions are given in meticulous detail. Interest rate was fixed at 20% for silver credit, and 33% for corn credit. It had extensive price-fixing: charges of tavern-keepers, physicians, veterinarians, builders, boatmen artisans were all given.

His greatest contribution is believed to be his legislative technique: the written word inscribed on his pillar displaced unwritten custom to a large extent.

Source: Men of Law - From Hammurabi to Holmes by William Seagle.